floor in a dead faint.

CHAPTER SIX.

WOUNDED.

The stupendous events of the war rushed on with startling rapidity.

The invasion of France, in retaliation for the projected invasion of
Germany, was now an accomplished fact; and, day after day, the Teuton
host added victory to victory on the long list of their triumphant
battle-roll, almost every engagement swelling the number of Gallic
defeats and lessening the power of the French to resist their relentless
foe, who now, with iron-clad hand on the throat of the prostrate
country, marched onward towards Paris, scattering havoc with fire and
sword wherever the accumulating legions of armed men trod.

The battle of Woerth succeeded that of Weissembourg; Forbach that of
Woerth; and then came Vionville and Gravelotte to add their thousands of
victims to the valhalla of victory. The surrender of Sedan followed,
when the Germans passed on their way to the capital; but the brave
general Urich still held out in besieged Strasbourg, and Bazaine had not
yet made his last brilliant sortie from the invested Metz. The latter
general especially kept the encircling armies of Prince Frederick
Charles and Steinmetz on the constant alert by his continuous endeavours
to search out the weakest spot in the German armour. The real attempt
of the French Marshal to break through the investing lines was yet to
come; that of the 31st of August, to which Fritz alluded in his letter
to his mother, having been only made apparently to support Mcmahon as a
diversion to the latter's attack on Montmedy, before the surrender of
Sedan.

From this period, up to the beginning of October, the French remained
pretty quiet, the guns of the different forts lying without the
fortifications of Metz only keeping up a harassing fire on the besieging
batteries that the Germans had erected around on the heights commanding
the various roads by which Bazaine's army could alone hope to force a
passage through their lines. Summer had now entirely disappeared and
cold weather set in, so the Teuton forces found it very unpleasant work
in the trenches when the biting winds of autumn blew through their
encampments of a night, making their bivouac anything but comfortable;
while the sharp morning frosts also made their rising most unpleasantly
disagreeable; add to this, whenever they succeeded in making their
quarters a trifle more cosy than usual, as certainly would the cannon of
Fort Quelin or the monster gu